Neon Genesis Evangelion: Communion
by Oh Tea
Summary: The story of the First Ancestral Race and the seeding of Earth, from the perspective of one of their own. Witness the origins of Seele, the creation of the Evangelion program, and the end of the world from the viewpoint of the orchestrators.
1. Glass

**NEON GENESIS EVANGELION: COMMUNION**

**Part I: "Glass"**

**AD 2016, New Years Day**

Luna dug her feet into the sand, feeling the warmth of the world soul lap at her toes with every ripple of the red sea. Twirling a wet strand of hair around a finger, she glanced over her shoulder at the second and third shapes to pull themselves out of the primordial brine. To be fair, Luna had retained her autonomy throughout the entire affair, a strangely pleasant experience, wrapped this time in nostalgia. The boy had ruined everything, but she could not spite him for having chosen a different path. She felt a strange swell, something her other children had never given her. It was pride. As the boy began strangling the only person he desired, Luna laughed. How interesting.

Standing up, Luna gave a gentle shake. The sand and moisture flew off her naked form like stars escaping the beginning of time, scattering through the air in a needless expression of joy. Nothing was going her way, but it was so wonderful. The Communion was silent, and her thoughts were her own. She found a skip in her step, floating as much as striding across the bleak landscape strewn with the enormous remains of her precious child. That giant white ruined face loomed large in her view, with half a smile for Luna and Luna alone. With a final effortless leap, Luna nestled herself between the two great lips, a makeshift ottoman upon which to recline and gaze at the new world.

"I can feel you everywhere," said Luna, pressing her face happily into the white flesh. "Did you find something worth existing for? You surprised me, you know, but I wouldn't have loved you if you'd remained my puppet."

Luna lay there a while, her blue-black hair growing over her back and down over the great face's bottom lip. Something about the flesh of the white creature rejuvenated her, or perhaps time was flowing without regard for law or reason. Propping herself up on one arm, head in hand, she pondered her once "living" seat.

"What are you?" she said, with a playful air. "Are you the thing others call Rei Ayanami? Are you yourself?" She paused. "Whatever your sense of self, you must return what was native to me in the beginning."

With thumb and forefinger, Luna tore a long strip of flesh off the vast lip, bouncing her legs off her grand seat like a little girl. She pushed a part of the strip in her mouth, chewing thoughtfully while the rest of it swung free. Her expression softened, dancing between a smile and a scowl as the meat dropped, bouncing off the white face and falling onto the sand. Luna's eyes narrowed, watching strange little plants sprouting from the discarded meal.

"Of course, you taste like… _her_."

* * *

**c. 7 billion years ago**

The examination room seemed unnecessarily large for just a simple white table and two chairs. Luna fiddled with her blue gown's draw-string, staring blankly at the researcher across from her. She had never bothered to remember his name, despite the name tag, which she couldn't be bothered to read. Through the glass walls, Luna could see an array of similar rooms, arranged in groups of four with halls running in-between. The light moved through the cubes in a glittering fashion, if one squinted their eyes. Nowadays, there were more rooms than people. The researcher shuffled his pile of papers, although he never looked at them. He never took notes.

"Your tests show progress," he said, while Luna coiled and uncoiled her draw-string, looking through the glass. "Your potential is predicted to be highest in your group."

In the next room over, a young woman in a red gown sat at the edge of her chair, speaking animatedly with her researcher. Shoulder-length black hair swayed like wind-blown grass with her every gleeful word. Each motion and gesture seemed to draw all things to her, like a whirl-pool suddenly spinning to life in a calm sea. Luna wondered who was questioning who.

* * *

The sun was slipping past the forested hills, casting a warm orange light through the windows of the "Blue Block" dining hall. The isolation of one of the world's last wild regions made the perfect location for the Transcendence Project, far from the bustle and choke of the endless city-sprawl. A couple of Luna's fellow Blues sat down (uninvited as usual) at her table, chattering noisily before their bottoms had even landed.

"Everyone from Yellow and Green is _gone_," said one girl, eliciting gasps from the others, despite having already heard this many times today. "Not a single sign of potential from either block! Can you believe it?"

"I thought that one boy from Yellow was still holding out…"

"He went last week! Haven't you noticed during your interviews? It's just us and the Reds, now."

"I wonder where everyone goes, after…"

"Hmm? Probably some government place, like an orphanage for grown-ups."

"Ugh, why do they divide us into blocks anyway?"

"Oh my God! I know! There was this guy in Green, and I always wanted…"

Luna folded her napkin into a random geometric shape, unfolded it, then began anew. She didn't hear her name being chirped.

"Luna? Luna?" Giggles. Like birds. "They told me you tested top in Blue. Isn't that great?"

Smoothing out her napkin, Luna exhaled. "Tired," she murmured.

* * *

"Raise your arms," said the probably pre-recorded voice. Luna felt the cool mist swirl about her skin, one of many inexplicable daily rituals at the research facility. "Please," added the voice, when additional blasts of the stuff failed to jolt her from her stupor.

The constant spray blurred every defining feature of the long white hall, a gentle obstacle course of staggered shiny black pads to stand on. The voice prompted her at each stop, and though she wondered if there weren't people behind the walls observing, she could not find it in herself to push the required amount of air over her vocal chords.

Though their schedules were strictly regulated, Luna found herself going to sleep earlier and earlier. Her single room was hardly more than a coffin, as white and featureless as most of the facility. Fading the lights, which seeped through the walls from no apparent source, she laid back on the form-fitting bed, forgiving herself for allowing a happy sound to escape her. With no desires or fears cluttered her mind, Luna welcomed the emptiness, taking no notice of the many wires waiting in the dark folds of her bed. On the edge of sleep, she was faintly aware of their timid emergence, brushing against her, only to retreat in the morning. They could watch her all they wanted. In the black embrace, nothing mattered. She would be sent away eventually, to wherever unneeded things slept. It could not be much different than this.

* * *

Between fingers and thumb, she rubbed a clutch of her hair, listening to the crunching sound it made close to her ear. Beyond the glass she saw her, facing her assigned researcher with a full-body smile. That Red never tired of the world around her, never tired of reaching out aimlessly, grasping and holding everything she could. Her researcher take no notes, either. Luna imagined those papers were given to the researchers for fidgetry alone.

"Luna," intoned her researcher. "I'd like to talk to you about your dreams."

She said nothing. She never dreamed. Crunch-crunch, whispered her hair.

"We have some readings," he said, shuffling his papers, "that indicate you've had some especially vivid dreams."

Luna slid her fingers and thumb down a long strand, letting her hand drop on the table. She felt like a puppet whose strings had been cut, head too heavy for her neck. It was all so aimless. Transcend to what? She was ready to sleep again. Tilting her head, Luna's bangs parted like curtains, revealing that smiling Red in the next room, focusing all her aimless cheer through the glass. Luna saw no reason to turn away.

"Dreams?" she asked, watching specks of light swim around the Red's big eyes.

* * *

More giggles. It was raining so hard the trees were hunching over, tapping on the windows, as if the weather was bad enough that they would want to join their conversation. The green hills rippled like leafy waves along the horizon.

"—she's been crying all week," rambled a girl, on and on, in-between mouthfuls of whatever synthetic mystery feed they were pushing on them. "They won't tell where they sent him."

"I told her it was a bad idea to date other patients," said a know-it-all.

"You mean _test subjects_," laughed the first.

Luna threw up, a single great heave spreading stunned silence and blood across the table.

* * *

Water felt nice. There was a taste in the back of her throat that would not go away, almost acid-like, both pleasant and revolting. It was different. It was unwelcome. Sitting on the edge of her bed, Luna fiddled with the lights, mesmerizing herself with the ebb and flow of the walls' soft glow. The cleansing hall had found nothing wrong with her, though the voice had told her to do the walk twice. She held up her hand, spreading her fingers, remembering the blood on her palm. Red. There was no such colour in her room, save for hidden under her skin.

Snuggling into her enveloping bed, Luna curled into a ball. The incident in the dining hall had put her on edge, and the wires crept out while she was still awake; shiny little worms drawn out by the escaping light to feed on dreams she could not recall.

* * *

Luna dug her middle finger nail into her thumb over and over, watching the row of little crescent moons slowly grow faint. The researcher tapped a pen on the table, perhaps to catch her attention, perhaps not. The moons were disappearing slower now. She became gradually aware of an unexpected dampness between her legs. Did she forget to dry properly after leaving the white hall? Tap, tap, went the pen.

"Amun says she had a dream where she was searching for something," he said. "Her progress is exemplary, across the board."

"Amun?"

The researcher pointed to Luna's left with the dreadful pen. On the other side of the glass was the black-haired Red. A mesmerizing landscape of empty rooms spread out behind her, a geometric desert. Amun was in high spirits, inching closer and closer to the edge of her chair with each smiling response. If she enjoyed her interview any further, she might end up on the floor.

"What did you dream about last night, Luna?"

Luna stifled a gasp as the dampness spread down her right thigh. She imagined the sound of water splashing across the floor. It made her feel sick.

"It's okay if you can't recall the particulars," said the researcher in what passed for a soothing tone. "Anything at all is fine."

"Warmth," she offered, faintly. "S-sunlight."

A great thud shuddered along the glass walls, with enough sudden force to cause Luna's researcher to flick his pen out of his hand. Amun was pressed against the glass, her researcher stunned and seated behind her. The red-robed girl's eyes were wide with delight, her lips mouthing something indecipherable into the fogging pane.

_I am everywhere now_, came a voice, soft and close as a lover's. Luna's eyes welled up as the dampness spread down her legs, every opening threatening to force out what was inside. Amun's eyes rolled back in her head, mouth agape. With a great spasm her body tore open like a hollow paper doll, spilling out a torrent of clear amber liquid. Luna's researcher was out of the room in an instant, shoes squeaking over a wet floor. The amber liquid sloshed and grew, a pulsating entity. It swallowed up Amun's researcher, seat and all, mixing his particles into the soup like sugar into tea. Luna pushed her hands between her legs and squeezed, unwilling to tear her eyes away. Amun's skin was smeared across the glass like a wet newspaper, slowly flaking away in the churning amber squall, threatening to break free of its small cube with every swell.

Luna looked down, finding the sight of amber between her legs, slick across the tiled floor. It was enough to tease out a sob. Some primal switch within her was flicked, sending her rushing out of the room, unnecessary thoughts hammering in her head. She flew by row after row of empty glass rooms. Only another row and a turn and she would be in the open, free of the glass maze. She went too fast into the turn, sliding on her wet soles into the wall. Amun's hand, completely unscathed, reached down as if to help her up. Luna slapped it out of the way, scrambling into the hallway's corner. Jerking her head to the side she saw nothing but empty glass cubes. Faint screams could be heard beyond the white hall. A klaxon sounded, red lights flooding everything in the tinge of her forgotten dreams. Luna breathed heavy, frantic breaths, trying to steal more air than she could manage.

"This is our last hello," cooed Amun, hair swaying around her head as she leaned forward. She smiled like a child finding a stray kitten on the road. "Soon we will never be apart. Your body responds, even if you don't."

Luna tried to force out words, but could only bleat and whine. The dampness was a vague sensation now. She felt warmth spreading. The clouds rolled back to reveal the sun.

"You're quivering," smiled Amun, that impossible woman. "So many emotions, so many sensations. You're going to shake apart." She reached out a hand again. Luna made to move, but with a dizzying lurch, Amun was cupping her face. Her very skin seemed to ripple, tendrils and droplets of Amun wrapping around Luna, encircling her in a creeping embrace of a million touches, skin melting into skin.

As Luna fell forward, sinking into the warmth, she could hear Amun say, "We are one."

(To be continued…)


	2. The Baroque Garden

**NEON GENESIS EVANGELION: COMMUNION**

**Part II: "The Baroque Garden"**

**c. 7 billion years ago**

Thought was denied her, and it was bliss. Luna could only feel. She could not see, hear, smell, taste, or touch, yet she was awash with a shimmering sensation she had not felt since the womb. A great rush of emotion and memory flowed around her. She could not help but melt with each wave, swirling into the sea of souls. This was not the emptiness she yearned for with every close of her eyes. It was something very much alive, fed by many streams, yet with a single gentle pulse, like the calm waters of her childhood lapping at the beach.

Luna became aware of form, something material. She was aware of a down and an up. Her head was cradled softly, her nose nuzzled against skin. Slowly but unafraid, she opened her eyes, knowing she was in Amun's lap. Their unclothed, unmarked skin was the same, and who was to say where one ended and the other began. Luna lay there for a while, unbothered that neither of them was breathing, feeling that gentle ripple through her entire being that said she was part of something more. Turning on her back, she looked up at the still forming image of Amun's dream-kissed face, big eyes and slight smile. Streaks of red seemed to dance across the serene woman's hair, as she languidly looked up and down the white sands. She seemed different to Luna—younger, ageless, perhaps just at peace. Luna could not quite remember if this was how Amun had always looked. She could not quite remember what she would see if she peered into a mirror. She was many things, now. The uncertainty it caused was soon overwhelmed by the perfect tranquility of the beach they rested on.

"I told you," said Amun, looking down into Luna's eyes, "that we were one. When we touched, we removed the barriers that divide and define us. We called the souls of humanity to join us in a divine communion. We are a new being, a billion hearts now open, bleeding into one. You and I are aspects of this whole." Her hair hung long enough to brush against Luna's cheek, red streaks gliding across the mess of black like the clouds across the sky above. They were truly on a beach. She had not just imagined that. Or was that why they were here? Because she wished to be? Had Amun pulled her out of the water? Their skin had dried by the time she had stirred. Perhaps time did not mean so much anymore.

Luna turned her face back into Amun's smooth belly. "I didn't ask for this," she murmured into the skin. "I thought I would have a quiet life."

"Being heir to a seaside inn was not what Providence had in store for you."

"I was so afraid when they took me away," Luna said, almost sleepily. "I never said goodbye to daddy. He thought they'd put me down a hole, all used up."

"He knows you are safe now."

"That isn't the point," she whispered, grabbing Amun's sand-caked wrist instead of elaborating on what the point really was. There was no regret or sadness anymore. The Communion was a transcendent being.

"It's alright now," said Amun, running her fingers through Luna's blue-black hair with her free hand. "Our secrets are the same. There is no dark place in your heart you need to fear. We are the same."

"Shouldn't I feel more… _transcendent_ than this?"

Amun smiled. "You and I were blessed. We were the catalysts of the transcendence. You remember your dream now, don't you? We dreamed only of each other, long before either of us were able to remember. We saw parts of each other that should have been impossible to see. Before anyone else, you and I were connected."

Luna pursed her lips. Without knowing, she knew. "You and I no longer see a difference between our dreams and our waking world. We are of the Communion, but of all its aspects, we are the farthest removed. We cannot be satiated, if we are to dream."

There was no need to say she needed time to think. Amun already knew. They had time enough for contemplation, for sitting on the sandy shores of a childhood memory. Amun knew that as Luna closed her eyes, she needed only to stroke her hair, humming a glad melody. Whether the serene woman had heard it before or had created it that moment, Luna felt it suited the dream of a god.

With a clarity she had never known, Luna fathomed the totality of her race. The desires of humanity had remained unchanged since her hairy ancestors took their first upright steps. Humans possessed the insatiable hunger of an animal married with an ever decreasing number of predators to check its spread. Technology brought great wonder, while poisoning the world year by year, until sheer want brought self-destruction. It was all too simple a tale. Her father's sea-side inn had been a dream, unmarred by the realities of human nature. The truth had been revealed to her in the back of a van on the way to the her life as an object. To the men who pulled her off the beach, spilling her groceries across the winding highway, she was a contract for the Foundation. Her condition was not as important as delivering a living sample. She woke up with blood that took no account of the calendar. She could not remember what happened, and she could not find the residue of those men's souls, meaning they had died before the Communion. Luna found herself quite content with that. The introduction into the Foundation's experiment had shown her the truths of life, of power and society in a time of need. She was a girl when she was a girl. She was an interesting piece of meat when she was an interesting piece of meat. If her will had no part to play, there was no point in feeling one way or another about anything.

Standing with two bags from the corner store, Luna had politely told the men she could not come with them. She told them twice. Their badges and papers did not interest her. If there was no good reason to leave daddy without telling, she was not going. She had fought them as they dragged her in. Daddy had told her about older times, when nobility and honour reigned. She understood then that the world had always been sick, and always would be. The gentle breathing of the Communion soothed her soul, and faintly Luna sensed Amun's care. Her mortal life was a distant thing. But the Foundation's actions resonated.

In her great-grandfather's generation, a war had drowned the world in blood and metal. But, like all wars, this one incited great men to discover great things. Tearing up the earth in search of resources, the brightest minds from the victorious power stumbled across ancient ruins from a civilization that seemed both familiar and otherworldly. What had been buried deep for millennia seemed beyond human engineering, yet had clearly been made to be found. Wide pillars supported a ceiling high enough for clouds to form, carved with inscriptions of prophecy and warning. Years of pain-staking translation revealed dozens of scenarios, from the dire to the utopian. Four unique qualities were hidden in the world's population, and would soon emerge. Each bloodline carried within it the potential for human transcendence, yet if the bloodlines mixed, humanity would cease to exist. Despite this danger, the pillars suggested some proximity between the carriers of these bloodlines would tease out the transcendent qualities. The panes of glass in those interview rooms had been more than architectural masturbation. They had been well aware of the strange draw Amun and Luna had felt for each other. Who knew how many of the rejected ones had felt the same way about others. Luna understood now that the ruins had given them, for whatever purpose, the recipe for a slow journey to a higher plane of existence. Instead of seeking to heal the world and mend humanity's ways, the men who formed the Foundation sought to find an easy escape through this abstruse prophecy, and rushed the process, kidnapping "test subjects" and incinerating them when they failed to produce results. Two more wars and billions of deaths later, humanity had reached the end of their story. The Foundation had not intended Amun to reach Luna, but they had hardly taken precautions. Many on the board of directors desired the forbidden union, believing the end of humanity to be a door to something new. Luna found her bitterness fade with every passing moment within the Communion. Such things were history now, meaningless curiosities of a past that seemed half-imagined.

Amun had been an energetic child, bored by a privileged life that most in that age of barrenness would have been happy to have. She had always been open to fate's every twist and turn, with a smile and lively compliance even for her kidnappers. She loved her parents, but no more than she loved the waves or the wind. She had long felt something was missing, and the face she showed the world was meant to invite that lost thing in. She was incomplete until the day she wrapped her liquidy form around Luna. The fullness of their union was a feeling that reached Luna even in her contemplation. Luna had accepted the world not because it had something more to give her, but because there was nothing left. Even now, this unhappy thought incited Amun to nuzzle and kiss the half-sleeping god-fragment in her lap.

"Wouldn't it be fun to find out who made those ruins?" beamed Amun, sprinkling butterfly kisses across Luna's sternly focused face.

"I suppose," she said, finding her lips resisting her effort not to smile.

"We're transcendent, whether you like it or not," teased the sometimes red-head. "But I think the universe will reveal everything to us in time. For now, I feel there's something we must do."

The Communion hummed in the back of their minds, shared feelings of a billion souls made one. Luna felt something within her, something incredible, and the Communion wished her to share it with the universe. It was because they were not fully immersed in the Communion that they felt the need to do more than simply exist. The mystery of their bloodlines set them apart, the awareness of imperfection and need driving them to create.

Luna jolted upright, sending up a small whirl of sand. Amun was grinning, having just expelled a handful of marble-sized orbs. Luna cringed, squeezing her thighs together. Maybe that smiling fool had experience with that doorway as a mortal, but it was all new to Luna. Amun stood and placed a hand on her face, sending the thought of children and motherhood through her like an electric shock. Luna could hear the little balls hitting the beach between her feet. The idea of creating life seemed too promising to ignore, and the power of the thought frightened her. The Communion swelled with pride for Luna, calming her.

"These are going to grow soon," said Amun. "We should find somewhere to plant them."

"A few hours ago I was in that glass room, and now—"

"Are you sure it was only a few hours?"

Before that vista, Luna's scowl seemed forced, even to her.

"Come," soothed Amun, "don't let your mortal life be the design for your eternal one."

Luna breathed a sigh of surrender, allowing the Communion's good feelings fill her up.

"See," laughed Amun, "there's no point in fighting it. A divinity should look divine! Who wants to worship a pouting god?"

"Worship?"

* * *

Those little orbs, which would have embarrassed the flesh and bones Luna, wasted no time in expanding. By the time they had hurled the things into the void of space, they were the size of celestial bodies. They knew intrinsically that the moon-sized vessels carried each a precious seed. Orbiting their now abandoned homeworld, Luna and Amun pondered these seeds. No guidance had been left for them, only a desire flowing through the Communion. A desire to create, to spread out across the entire galaxy.

"Isn't it wonderful?" beamed Amun. "To think worlds will be filled by those tiny little things. They came from us!"

For a divine being, the Communion seemed to act on intuition, rather than wisdom. It was merely accepted that once flung into space, the seeds would find suitable worlds upon which to bloom. Luna found herself experiencing a sensation she had not felt in an incalculable span of time—anticipation. Stretching out her leg like a ribbon, Luna touched her toes to the larger of their birthworld's two moons. Wiggling about, kicking up the dust and dirt, she let her body fluctuate and grow, the rest of her flowing like a jellyfish as it dealt with the various pulls of gravity. She wrapped her arms around the cratered rock, linking fingers, burying her face in it like a pillow. Gripped by the realization that she had a purpose, Luna giggled, sending rippling waves through her watery skin.

"If the Communion's forgotten to become one with anyone back home," said Amun, "they'll be quite tickled if they look skyward now."

Blowing a storm of grey across her moon-pillow with a blast from her nose, Luna pondered what it meant to have no boundaries between dreams and reality. She could walk through the shambles of her homeworld, should she desire, or spontaneously manifest a beach, like the one she had awoken on. She could imagine and experience anything. Whether or not it was an experience shared by the universe itself seemed irrelevant. She had an inkling the Communion as a whole was enjoying something similar, a private existence of inward satisfaction. Though she could feel the great being of which she was but an aspect, she could not see it anywhere. The divine truly did exist on a different plane.

"We are still tied to the world of our birth," said her ever-attuned red-headed partner-in-transcendence. "You must feel it. Our bloodlines, we hold the same matter as those ruins that began all this. The vessels we created drew power from the world, through the ruins. The Communion will be anchored to this rock even when it is as barren as your new hug-toy. When our children have eaten up the ruins, I presume our great work will be done, and the Communion shall remain here in contemplation."

"But _we_ can go anywhere, can't we? Quite an elaborate garden we're planting."

Amun swirled around Luna, her hair and form like rings around the pockmarked satellite. "Let's ride with one of our seeds," she said, her voice defying the vacuum. "They should start landing soon."

"Soon?"

"Yes, well, it is all relative, if you want to be Lunaish about it."

"Lunaish?"

Amun grabbed a handful of the quasi-solid Luna. "Never mind that," she said, laughing as she shook her head. "A celestial body like yours should always be in motion."

* * *

Luna's "pillow" had not been much larger than the sphere they found themselves inside now. Amun's scent hung sweetly in the air, reminding her that everything she saw now had once been inside the woman. A shallow sea of clear liquid coated the interior, repulsed in all directions by the two-pronged lance rotating in the sphere's centre like a compass. Amun splashed about like a child, hanging upside down from Luna's perspective. She was gazing bright-eyed at something in the inverted sea. It was a four-limbed creature with a tiny tail and cutely large head. It paddled around with its feeble limbs, Amun reaching out to touch it, always giggling herself silly a moment before contact. Though the "top" of the sphere was miles away, Luna could hear her companion's every squeal with clarity.

"My seed," she cooed. "The Seed of Life. She'll grow true and quick, a celebration of living." Luna knew her seeds were of Wisdom, of Knowledge. She just knew, and it was the same for Amun.

The spinning lance came to a sudden stop, and Luna felt their great vessel accelerate in the direction it pointed. She wondered what seeds might have been born from the failed "Green" and "Yellow" blocks. Perhaps some other world full of violent, greedy humans would discover such things.

Luna and Amun moved outside, to watch the vessel smash into the young, soft world selected by the lance. Whatever it had been pointing at, it had not been the planet's centre of gravity. They could perceive the surface move like leaves over water, bunching together and breaking apart over time, the great vessel becoming buried under shifting rock. The lance had been pointing at something already there. Amun raised an eyebrow, smirking. She knew Luna's mind, but she wanted to watch her seed grow.

Racing through a delicate atmosphere, between the clouds hurled up by the impact, Luna passed through the layers of the planet like water through a sieve. She came to a stop in a sealed chamber, dotted with pillars in a style the Communion recognized immediately. It was just like those ruins. With their collective knowledge, Luna understood the inscriptions, and there was no mention of bloodlines or transcendence. Instead she found instructions for the children of their seeds, with hundreds of predictions for what might befall a world seeded in any number of ways. Whoever had made the ruins on their world had made these, and she felt certain that all their lances were that moment seeking other such ruins, marking out suitable worlds for the seeds they traveled with. The Communion was pleased with this knowledge, hoping to contemplate and reflect upon all the paths life might take. Luna felt she might be projecting her own desires too sloppily, but the Communion seemed eager to witness her seeds grow, as they would create civilizations that resembled what came before transcendence. Would humanity err the same way, every time?

Returning to Amun's side, she saw her companion had no room in her heart for the ruins, not with her seed awakening. Her hair betrayed her delight, extending away from her into infinity, arcs of winged sunlight. With a patience possible only through their divinity, they witnessed Amun's children seep out, breaking into smaller amounts that took hold in all corners of the planet. Within a few dozen trips around its star, the world was covered in a quivering lattice of life, with no differentiation between flora and fauna. Dragging Luna by the hand, Amun dove through the still-forming atmosphere into the fruits of her "labour". Scattered sunlight shone through thick translucent forms looming above them, a world-hugging cathedral of curves and colours. Bag-like entities expanded and opened, sending vibrant yellow dust sailing on a lazy journey past wandering violet trees and their unquenchable roots. Following Amun's lead, Luna allowed her body to elongate and curve to compliment their surroundings. They broke free of the shifting canopy, taking mile-long strides through the kaleidoscope forest. Truly, they felt like gods now. Luna felt water droplets roll across her cheeks as they strode through clouds, breaking through into the unveiled warmth of the sun. Some part of her, painting mortal life with an undeserved nostalgia, imagined the two of them running through a field of wild flowers after a long nap, so long their skin had tanned and she felt like a new person.

"Beautiful!" said Amun. "Grow! I want you all to grow!" Vast extensions of the forest below spiralled up to meet their giant mother's finger-tips, dancing across the canopy as one might with blades of tall grass.

Luna felt the question of the ruins slip deeper into her mind, taking root. The Communion named him the "Builder", someone who would surely make himself known when the time was right. Amun had eyes only for her garden. No one was in a hurry. For eons, Luna became lost in her companion's bliss. She had never see anyone so unashamedly in love, without motive or machination. Amun wished for her children to grow and live with all her heart. The Communion wished it. The universe wished it. And while Luna's seeds sat dormant, leaking slowly, giving birth to microscopic creatures, Amun's thrived as no other form of life she had known.

**c. 4 billion years ago**

She had named the great lizard "Ko-Ko", because that was the cute noise it made when it had hatched just a few decades ago. It took pleasure in letting its maker ride it, and although the so-called wisdom from her seed had yet to make an appearance, she could tell the other animals were jealous. Amun had been frolicking amongst her issue with an unchanging enthusiasm for billions of years. Luna had been unable to keep up. Though she always felt a subtle wholeness when being near the red-haired divinity, existence was becoming predictable, millennia by millennia. She could foretell every word and mannerism of her divine companion. She could forecast every lurch and sway of life itself. While the emergence of larger life forms on her worlds were welcome distractions, she was feeling what Amun had teasingly called "the curse of wisdom". The Communion hummed contently on the other side of the galaxy, contemplating the garden the Builder was having them plant. The experiment had not missed a beat in three billion years.

"Don't let them get to you," she said, wrapping her pale limbs around the long neck of the pebble-skinned colossus. "They're just insecure."

Herds of plant-eaters watched with their blank eyes, munching contently, then dipping back into the immense river Ko-Ko waded through. When their heads came up again, there was more dangling greenweed to munch, and more staring to be had. In the distance, flesh-eaters prowled the riverbanks, clever enough to steer clear of the smooth-skinned sometimes blue-haired creature. Luna pressed her face against Ko-Ko's neck and growled a feeble "grrr". Her long-necked mount felt the vibration from her lips, and made a noise of his own, startling a flock of birds who immediately splattered a nearby family of grazers with the white goop of fear. She sighed again, turning her head to watch the flesh-eaters stalk.

"Nothing personal," she said, pushing her hand elbow-deep through Ko-Ko's thick hide. The long-neck's bleating sent ripples of din and panic down the river. With a straight-armed twist to the side, Luna sent a load of neck-meat across the water. She slipped into the river with a simple grace, followed by a slow shower of red and the collapse of the still twitching Ko-Ko. The flesh-eaters were beside themselves, one moment gaily leaping into the water, the next scurrying out with one eye on Luna. She rushed them, sending up a wake taller than her "human" body. Before the nearest set of teeth could decide how to react, she had her little arms around its box-shaped head. An indignant snort blew her hair about, the others shifting from foot to foot, wiggling their egg-grasping fingers in anticipation. She squeezed, tearing the stupid thing's head off. The slowest to flee took a chop from her hand, losing its leg above the knee. Until sunset she chased the giant reptiles down, moving through their frail flesh as if they were sand castles to be trampled. When the sun disappeared, its red light barely making it over the horizon, there was nothing left along the river to squeeze. She stood in the caved-in chest of one of the beasts, blood rolling down her bare arms, flesh caked upon her hands and fingers. There was a faint rustling of underbrush behind her, and she could tell from the tiny footfalls that it was a furry thing of some kind.

"Hurry up and learn to speak," she murmured. "Stupid mammals."

Though she left at once, it took her months to reach Amun's side. A part of her had ached ever since their last parting. They were a puzzle torn apart. When Luna broke through the clouds, her immortal companion was half-immersed in a city-sized flower, multitudes of brilliant pedals gently swaying, while yellow-white tendrils tentatively reached to their maker. In the distance, an almost humanoid behemoth lumbered across rolling hills, followed by vast avian flocks.

"Your colours are brilliant this year," said Amun, unwinding one of the flower's tendrils from her arm. Soft leafy growths were peeling off her like she was shedding skin. She had a closeness with all things that Luna could only envy. The Communion was joyous, relishing in the garden's spread across the galaxy.

"Amun…" Luna started, feeling her presence like an undertow. "I…"

There was no need for further words. The flower unwound itself reluctantly as Amun stepped forward. With a swift movement the red-haired divinity was holding her, entwining with her as if she were the flower. All coherent thought broke and scattered like the leaves from Amun's skin. There was no room for fear in the spaces Amun filled. They held each other until the flower had grown a mile further into the sky. The sun seemed to spin around them. Luna moved her lips and tongue against Amun's mouth, impulsively thinking she could become closer than they were. What an embarrassingly mortal idea.

Leaving the atmosphere years later, the warm comfort Amun had given her slipped away like a curtain. Behind it was nothing but the black, pockmarked with stars that would play host to worlds she had already seen. It was her. It was all her. She was Amun. She was the Communion. They were all one being. Of course she knew Amun's ever movement and sound. She had been talking to herself for three billion years.

* * *

A pang of loneliness came with each seeding. Luna was, in every sense, losing a part of herself. Amun relished in the ritual, feeling ever the more satisfied. It was infuriating. But this time, as the seeds left her body, she felt nothing, because nothing had changed. As Amun sped off like a comet after her children, Luna drifted near their homeworld. That useless rock. The Communion was worried. Concern filled her up, an unbearable pressure. _I understand_, she thought. _I will tend to the garden_.

Inside a randomly selected vessel, Luna sat curled up, one hand around her knees peaking above the liquid, the other hand stroking her seed. It nuzzled against her palm happily, then took off, swimming around her temporary home's equator.

"Pity you take so long to do anything," she sighed.

The lance stopped spinning. The vessel picked up speed. Days passed, and Luna felt Amun's presence. They were both heading for the same star. Quickly imagining the aim of their respective lances, she realized Amun's seed would hit the third planet from the star, while Luna's would hit the fourth. It would be another ten billion years before the fourth planet had enough sunlight to be habitable for her progeny. This was assuming the smaller fourth planet would survive her vessel's arrival.

"Come," she called to her swimming child. Amun's seed had already smashed into the third planet, a freshly formed, still malleable world. Her seed was eager to add to their garden. "The best part about having a child is not nursing them or cradling them in your arms," she said to the squirming little thing. "The best part is talking with your children when they are grown. I'm going to help you grow, and one day we'll sit amongst the stars and talk about all the things you've come to love about this world. I hope you find something."

Her seed made a weak attempt to crawl in to her lap, so she gave the smooth, delicate creature a push. It curled up and sent little spasms of love up through Luna's body. She wondered if her seed understood what she had said. It probably did not matter.

"You wait here like a good girl," she said, standing. The lance pointed true and steady for the fourth planet. Luna flew up to it, grabbing the butt with both hands. The Builder had written of this, the safeguard. Imagining the solar system she was about to enter, she pushed the lance slightly. The Communion flared up with concern. Even if Amun cared enough to glance away from her task, there was not enough time to stop the impact. A hammering anxiety began to rise in her, rushing through every aspect of the greater divinity. With minutes to go, Luna swelled in size, dislocating her jaw. Gripping the lance, she shoved it down her throat, breaking it apart with her tongue with each push. Its disappearance inside her was heralded by the muffling of the Communion's distress, a strange but not unwelcome feeling. She would have to thank the Builder for his interesting poetry, for showing her how to leave the glass room at last.

( _To be continued._ )


	3. Love of a Hungry Mother

**NEON GENESIS EVANGELION: COMMUNION**

**Part III: "Love of a Hungry Mother"**

**c. 2 million years ago**

Luna had not taken a breath in several billion years, so it was of no consequence that her mouth and throat were full of sand. What was of consequence was the firmness of her body, as if its particles had recalled what it was like to live as a mortal, all the pieces huddled together in material form. More consequential still, was the irrational hunger that drove her to crawl, swim, and squirm up through the all-encompassing coffin. Time and weather had filled up her seed's vessel, though Luna knew intrinsically that her progeny had spilled out across the globe while she had slept. It had taken eons to recover from the lance's strangulation of her link to the Communion, and even now, she was barely aware of it. While the freedom of her mind was refreshing, she was unsteady on her feet, and spent an uncomfortable hour expelling tiny rocks from her every hole. A throbbing famine replaced the transcendent joy she had taken for granted, so she staggered across waves of craggy hills in search of whatever it was she craved. After scaling the first, Amun appeared, her naked skin fluttering like folds of fabric.

"You are attempting the forbidden," intoned the Flame-Haired One.

"Don't say that first thing in the morning," Luna groaned.

"You've felt so far away," Amun said, that smile slowly emerging. "I'm just glad to see you again."

"I was fine before all of this," she said, putting up a hand as she coughed up some finely ground precious metals. "We didn't need to be the same thing. I never asked for this."

Amun swirled closer, allowing her form to be blown by the wind cresting the hill tops. Halting her quivering body an inch from Luna's, she inhaled deeply. "There is something exotic about you," she said, tilting her head. "Something vulnerable. The lance has had an endearing effect. It makes me want to hold you. Protect you."

Luna shuddered. Amun was another part of her, of the great being that was the Communion, but now things were off-balance. Like a repressed mania, Amun threatened to overtake her, and the lance had stripped her of all armour.

Withdrawing with a rare hesitancy, the rippling god-fragment sighed. "Won't you return to me? To the Communion?"

"If I pull away, I might know you better."

"You suppose we were different beings to begin with, do you?" Amun's eyes widened. "The moment I saw you, I knew you were the missing piece."

"We will see what the universe allows," said Luna, aware that her feeble body was now leaking water from the eyes. "We have all the time it will give us."

"That may be, that may be. But you know the Communion forbids the union of our two seeds."

"The Communion will watch as a part of itself does as she pleases," Luna retorted, legs threatening to give. "Isn't this all just part of the grand experiment? A survey of all the paths life might take? The Communion desires to know if we will soon be part of a pantheon, if transcendence will be achieved again… if someone offers up a map."

Amun said nothing for a time, until the wind died down, and the sun was half-hidden behind a range of distance mountains. There was no need to speak, for even though the Communion was but a whisper, Amun's gaze was enough. Luna would remain on this rock until all the life she had spent was returned to her. She had, by a reading of the nearest star's health, a billion more years before she would return wholly to the Communion, or become something else.

* * *

Pangs of hunger shook Luna from the void. She did not remember Amun leaving, but when she came-to she was lying on a hill far from her seed. Whether Amun had moved her, or she had simply wandered in a daze, she could not tell. A jagged rock sat in the earth beside her, stained dark along its peaks and edges. Luna rubbed her neck sleepily, finding black, dried flakes there. The realization that she was neither alive nor dead brought a lucid quality to her thoughts, urging her to stand and face this place. It felt as thought years had passed since Amun's last touch. Though she could faintly see fires in a valley ahead of her, the principle source of illumination was sunlight reflecting off a great pale orb in the sky, which must have been formed when she crashed her seed's vessel into the surface. Laughter rose up in her, a giddy delight at the first change she had made independent of the Communion. She remembered the wonderful plan she would realize, with her seed to the east, and Amun's far to the south. The sound of her glee flowed through the valley, extinguishing the fires. Luna decided to visit the creatures that had crawled from her seed's primordial ooze.

It was a slow walk, guided by scattered visions, like pedals of light slowly tumbling upon the path between Luna and her children. They were as her people had been before transcendence, though with stranger, older features. The hominins were caught unexpectedly in their abode, a deep crack in the wall of a cliff, while gathering spears and flakes of stone. One starting a fire turned his head and almost fell into the new flame. The rest seemed uneager to move, wary of the smooth-skinned, blue-haired woman before them. A younger man, maybe a boy, walked slowly into the open space before Luna, hugging a bundle of furs in his arms. Without turning his gaze away, he held the bundle out to her. Evidentially it was cold, as hinted by the patches of snow she had taken no notice of. The garments fit loosely on her delicate frame, but were not unwelcome. The boy said something to a greybeard in a lyrical pre-language, causing a cabal of old women to break into whispered council. By the change in the spearmen's demeanour, Luna imagined she had come across them on the cusp of a hunt. Their speech began to reveal itself to her, and she discerned she had been identified as some sort of divinity. She imagined she must be exuding a pheromone to create such an impression, in her lurching state. As she crept out into the cold, liaison boy-thing at her side, it occurred to her that the crippling hunger might be a need for food.

The presumed alpha of the hunting party squatted low to the ground often, touching and tasting it. After peaking around a jagged stand of rocky outcroppings, he raised an arm. While adjusting his grip on his spear, he made two further gestures. As the group rounded the great rocks, Luna staggered, not from fatigue, but from wonder. Beyond the rocks, an orange dawn cast long shadows of a family of mammoths, making their way across the flatlands to feed. She had become so accustomed to seeing only the smallest furry things, and this sight brought her back to a mortal age, and teddy bears from her father. Composing herself, the divinity urged the boy to start moving, with a few words she had learnt. Catching up to the hunters planning their approach, she was seized by a sudden clarity and vigour.

Three strides longer than that of the greatest terrible lizard were punctuated by a leap that took Luna in a shallow arc towards a furry landing pad, wind whipping about her face as she hugged her knees. Too hazy-headed for eloquence, she allowed the momentum to send her through the enormous body like a bullet, marring the white field with a gush of elephantine viscera. As the mammoth fell behind her, she unfurled in a single motion, standing to present a red goddess to her fresh worshippers. The other beasts bolted. The hunters, who were too far away to see anything but vindication for the bold young liaison's friendliness, began to hurry down a gentle incline onto the plain. Luna impatiently reached arm-deep into the hole, feasting greedily, letting a warm satisfaction wash over her.

* * *

The cave-dwellers were less fearful, despite the already embellished tales spun by the proud hunters. Luna was a terrifying deity, but she was clearly theirs, and so a great blessing. Evidentially, tyranny and autocratic abuse were not things they worried about in this era. A doe-eyed young girl offered up a crude bowl of meat for the umpteenth time since the hunting party had returned. That little brow furled with concern as Luna merely picked, contradicting the hunters' descriptions of the goddess' insatiable hunger. She could overhear a cluster of men planning a vast mural on the inner walls of their communal home, struggling to recreate their blue-haired goddess' violent feast with mere lines and shapes. The mammoth's flesh had been a relief, but it was not enough. The lance, broken and dispersed throughout her body, sealed her off from the unending flow of mana that had once sustained her. Although the life on this planet came from the primordial soup spread by her seed, and thus ultimately from her, even a whole family of those snow-beasts would not satisfy.

Song and dance circled the fire pits of the community, far back into this cleft in the earth. The cave was larger than she had first seen, sheltering near to two hundred kin. Luna had said little, only praising them as proficient hunters, which she hoped would be enough to bring them joy without unnecessary metaphysical confusion. Unlike Amun, whose seeds gave birth to a lattice of life that quickly reached sentience, Luna had until now seen nothing but slow-witted animals from her divine womb. Unlike Amun, she had never seen the worshipful eyes of her own children. For a moment, standing in the cave between the happy noises and well-fed hominins, she felt she could ignore her burning hunger. It was the bowl-holder's worried look that broke the mood.

Glances and words were soon exchanged between the women, but Luna's mind was elsewhere. She had taken for granted how much she had been able to hold in her mind, when she had been closer to the Communion. Now, she could be distracted as easily as any mortal. She needed proper sustenance. While twirling a strand of hair, her liaison emerged from the back of the cave, where he had been making enthusiastic suggestions to the muralists. He came before Luna, and the bowl-holder retreated gracefully, vanishing into the celebration. The din fell away as the boy knelt, looking at Luna with a ferocity she had not seen in immortal or mortal life. Her inexplicable exploits aside, she was certain these people, and this boy in particular, were aware of her nature deep in their very being. He held out his hands, palms towards her, and bared his neck.

"You're kidding me," she whispered.

As the tribe gathered, a gnarled old woman declared that the world was born from the blood of gods, and that blood must be returned, or else the world would break. Luna knew not if that idea had been planted by her, or if was something intrinsically known. It was a sentiment that would be echoed through time, from the grizzle-caked temples of the Aztecs to the immaculate cathedrals of Christendom. Cupping the boy's face with hands softer than any he had seen, she felt a deep ache, crying out for everything that had left her when she had scattered her seeds across the void. All these precious creatures belonged to her. As she began to remove the thick animal skins from his frame, Luna wondered if she might hum a song from her world, starting a ritual that would spiral out of control millions of years later. Instead, she completed the task in silence, the eyes around her enchanted. Unlike the imposing mammoth, the boy seemed a soft fruit in her arms, all thin skin and juice. As if to drown out her noise, the elders started chanting a mantra that she hardly noticed nor cared for. Her last feeding had been mere refreshment to this rapture, a sensation that obliterated all others, drowning her in the delight of fulfillment.

* * *

Her eyes were still lolled back in her head when she opened them, her first sound a happy sigh. She was lazily aware of the defiled young body entwined with her on the ground, and the figures peering at her. The body slipped off her as she stood. Rubbing her eyes with one hand and blocking out the sun with the other, Luna looked down the cave's depths. These people had been up all night, worshipping her. Somewhere in this cave, the boy's parents were happy to see their child serve some small purpose, as his chances of survival had always been slight. Luna had to leave, or else upend their little society. The lance drained her of strength as quickly as she regained it, leading her mind through a macabre montage of feast after feast, until every soul had returned to her. Could she devour them faster than they reproduced? Would she dig back into the sunken vessel and consume her seed? She imagined her child, grown, submitting as that boy had. Would it ever be enough, or as Amun had said, would it be like this until this world died? Either way, she would not make puppets of these hairy fools. With no warning or fanfare she turned and walked into the morning, leaving nothing but her unfinished meal and footprints in the new snow.

With but a tinge of hunger remaining, Luna felt more aware of the Communion, and a curious quivering of anticipation that almost gave her the shivers. Amun was on some rock orbiting some star, playing with her children as much as tending to them. Though she pined for Amun, her curiosity desired the Builder. She regretted leaving her seed alone, as she regretted the state of Amun's restrained child to the south. She understood now that she would have to be patient, as even though she felt closer to her transcendent self, she was a far cry from the being that had skipped through the stars. If she was going to have her seed meet Amun's, she would need these primitives to develop into something capable enough to assist her. Such a feat would surely draw the Builder's attention, for surely he had created a forbidden scenario to attract transgression. She thought of him as a "he", for no mother would abandon her children with nothing but the vaguest of guidance. Even her kind father, now a fogged ghost in her mind, had let her stumble through puberty without a picture book or frank talk. Now her new father expected her to plant his pretentious garden? Self-discovery on a cosmic scale seemed unwise for an imperfect divinity. She looked forward to meeting him, when she had fashioned the Communion's peer. More than a cry for attention, it would free her from her loneliness.

She wandered through the open terrain, jagged peaks and crags on either side, white rivers of snow inching down them day by day. A dead, white landscape to the mortal eye, but as ever-changing as clouds to Luna's limitless perspective. As the hunger returned, she fed again and again, learning the movements and patterns of the different hominin kin groups. They warred incessantly, slow-motion ethnic cleansings that eroded rival tribes over centuries. When the hunger became insufferable, Luna took the remains from the pervasive low-scale massacres, avoiding the religious fervour of her first contact. As the world she was anchored to spun around and around its star, her understanding of the feeding process matured, allowing her to reclaim the soul without killing the body. Adjusting the spectrum she was visible in, Luna started to move amongst the tribes and clans as a phantom, leeching bits of soul. Perpetually drifting between want and satisfaction, the unseen goddess watched the hominins kill and massacre until only a single race remained. The grisly march towards supremacy was all too human, just as her people had been before the Communion. Without a doubt, these creatures had come from her divine body.

"Behold," she said to herself, millennia after inspiring those cave paintings, "the last honest age of humanity. Soon you will pretend this is about creeds and ideals, but as you are still children, you see no need to disguise your nature." She paused for a moment. "What flawed gods we are, to make you in our image. What monster made me?"

**c. AD 250**

Without moon or stars, a single church cast the brightest light in Rome that evening. The sound of fire eating wood was quickly matched by anguished screams, as the men and women within gave up their prayers and accepted their fate. Guards kept the citizens at bay, and none dared to approach, for curiosity might attract suspicion, and suspicion might find new kindling. Luna had held high hopes for the followers of Mani, but it seemed that Paul of Tarsus had fashioned the world's vastest religious network. Though weak, it was not timid, and held the intellectual depth of the Hebrew faith married with an openness that was quickly drawing adherents from every corner of Roman society. Weaving effortlessly through the crowded streets, Luna soundlessly thanked human nature for the rise of such cities. All roads did indeed lead to Rome, and on those roads came souls of every quality, allowing her to cease wandering and begin putting down roots. She had only needed to show herself, as she did to the cave people, a handful of times to understand where her true power lay. These Christians would give her the tools she required.

The city was never still, but it was especially lively now, floating all manner of gossip and hearsay to her celestial ears. The Emperor had tolerated the edicts of his predecessors for many years, but infighting amongst the Christians, who had yet to settle on scriptural cannon, had frustrated him. Though he had Christian family himself, he valued civil order more, and so reinstated the persecutions. Tip-toeing around over-turned tables and anxious clerics, Luna found what she needed in the Christian district, filled also with Manichaeans and other such un-Roman faith groups. The leading bishops had taken issue with a sect dedicated to Theotokos, the mother of Jesus. Graffiti based on a sighting of her from the previous decade had spread through the city. The orthodox bishops feared the sect would turn Theotokos into a mother goddess that eclipsed the Messiah, and used the surge in icons of the Blue-Haired One to have their rivals purged. While the bishops paid lip-service to Imperial law, Luna's worshippers burned alive. She saw no reason to intervene on that note, as many Christians had thrown themselves willingly before the magistrates, demanding to be put to death, such that their numbers overwhelmed the clerks and led to their strange ejection from the premises. "Use cliffs or rope," the magistrates had said, "if you are so eager." To save martyrs-in-progress would be futile.

Behind a broken door, Luna manifested tattered robes and became visible, wrapping her hair up in cloth. Christians respected suffering, so she made certain to appear weary, even though her hunger was calm.

"Can any good soul lead me to the gardens in the north?" she said in calm, world-choked voice. "With the Emperor moving his soldiers about so, there is none who'd brave the journey, even for her."

"Gardens?" asked one, sceptically.

"Her?" asked another.

"The Mother awaits," Luna replied, "with shelter and the joys promised before the Temple fell."

A young man stood. "I have heard of this place!" He combed sandy hair around his ears with his fingers, like an excited fidget. "My sister's folk took the road north, through barbarian lands. Her husband knew of a peaceful realm, where simple people might live." The other Christians deferred to the young man, taking on his enthusiasm. "I do not think God would accept one such as me by fire, who has accomplished so little." Luna marked him as a leader in the community, but was intrigued by something else.

Now, Luna had spoken the same at several gatherings during the persecutions, but never had she met one such as the young man. The sandy-haired mortal had an aura too delicious to ignore, finer than any she could recall, and a drive that would soon send him north.

With that set in motion, Luna left their sight. The more eloquent vandalisms of the city, murals under bridges and in tunnels, often depicted Theotokos in a rich land of primordial growth. Gliding out of the city, it was a land she returned to. The limitations inflicted upon her by the lance had been a curious boon, spurning her on to creative discoveries she might have never known if she were still wholly immersed in the Communion. Her mind was such that it could contain other minds, making her daydreams into something tangible and open. Her Dream had become a refuge over the years, and Luna could not be certain as to whether she had influenced the myths, or if the myths had influenced her. Within the Dream was an ancient world of towering plants and deep valleys. Walls of rock stood upon each other like stairs, covered in a sprawl of vines and greenery. It was every bit the Eden of their Theotokos, the shared delusion of deity and worshipper. The sandy-haired man would certainly come, and though his people would be lost, he would miraculously find his way.

She could perceive everything within the Dream, locking her gaze on the new arrivals when they came in a day later. Travel was an easy thing, when the destination moved to you. The tasty young leader was named Laurentius, and his group of half a dozen were rapturously taking in the vista. Laurentius wished them to remain calm, as he only wanted to confirm the tale before collecting the rest of his sect in Rome. He wondered if his sister had found the "garden", though Luna was certain she was with the Germanics by now. The man's organizing ability, wedded with his overpowering aroma, marked him as the perfect tool. He would bring stability to her existence with the lance.

Laurentius and his people came to a gently arching bridge, spanning a ravine deep enough to swallow half of Rome. At the other side was a wide house, a flower carved out of stone. The exotic bloom came from a memory of one of Amun's many lush worlds, solid pedals of rock reaching a dozen stories into the sky. At the foot of the bridge was Luna, appearing in her blue-haired radiance, emitting a light from within her. In the Dream, she was almost as her true transcendent self, brighter than the false sun in the false sky.

"We have much work to do," she said, "if we are to save humanity."

The seven stopped, awe-struck and vindicated. Before them stood Theotokos, an answer to any doubt that had ever crept into their heart. They quivered, they seemed dazed, and if not for their manner of dress and smooth skin, Luna would have mistaken them for the cave-dwellers. The sandy-haired apostle, on the other hand, was surprisingly composed. His awe was not his friends' primal, drug-like euphoria. It was a cerebral awe.

"Holy Mother, is this not Paradise?" he asked. "Are the final days upon us?"

"That time is not now, for too few have faith. The Lord will not return to so small a chorus."

"Lead us, Holy Mother," he said, prostrating himself. "If it pleases you, tell your loving servant how we might fill the chorus."

"We will make the lion love us, until the lion sits beside us, until the lion lays with us."

* * *

A gentle warmth blew through the Dream, over the pedal peaks of Luna's stone house. Her hair blew this way and that, at times as long as her form, at times longer, changing shape to suit the wind. The Communion bristled with uncertainty, unwilling to stop her, unwilling to look away. Only Luna and Amun, the aspects of the Communion bearing the bloodlines laid down by the Builder, remained unruffled. For the Communion's anxiety was the anxiety of an audience, and nothing more. Watching the makeshift tent-town spread at the far side of the bridge, her followers excitedly milling about, she wondered if a present god caused more pain than a distant one. Word of a timeless paradise had spread through Rome and the surrounding provinces, bolstering the strength of the Theotokos faction in the fragile Christian community. Though the mainline inheritors of Paul's ministry continued to suppress them, there was little need for concern. Luna intended to harness the faith around her to set down foundations for her conspiracy, not supplant Christ as the sole object of worship. It had been half a decade since Laurentius first led his people into the Dream, and he had brought many of his kin and friends. Most were of little use, save for the influence they pressed upon those who remained in Rome. Despite her insistence, none would enter her house or cross the bridge, save Laurentius. They considered it a sanctum to match the holy places in Jerusalem. It was more amusing than anything, as the Dream remained pleasantly Mediterranean for those living at the foot of her abode, even when the Mediterranean itself was cold and belligerent. She did not offer her house because she was worried they would catch a chill.

"Holy Mother," said her disciple behind her, his quiet footfalls almost too faint for her divine ears, "another deacon has lost his tongue."

"Eventually the Emperor will understand how cruelty benefits the very faith he is trying to strangle." Luna caught Laurentius' scent in the wind, as potent as when they had first met.

"Three more houses have joined our community, including the branch of the Flavians you were concerned about." While common-born Christians lost their lives in the persecution, the nobility merely lost their property, making them especially effective tools in turning the Empire.

Luna smiled behind her sea of blue hair. "I expect great things from Helena and Constantinus. They have a sure aura, as will their child. If this tyrant does not tolerate us, the one that follows will. The pain of Our Lord's children will soon be at an end."

"But what of your pain, Mother?"

"How bold!" she laughed, turning to face him, plain white robes billowing. "Speak your mind."

"You seem to carry a great longing," he said with no trace of nervousness. "It must be a burden to remain here on earth, while your loved ones reign in Heaven."

The man was right, if not about the particulars. She urged the wind to send another hint. Little tastes were not enough. "You should stay this night, dear Laurentius, if you are concerned."

"If you command, Holy Mother."

"Again and again, I do not command." Frustration picked at her composure, but she found his calm humility too amusing to make her cross. "I was once flesh and blood as you." It was not a lie.

For the first time, he hesitated. "I am not sure what service I might—"

Luna shifted to him in a blur, her blue mane following like a wake. "You are a good man, for reading the gospels of so many apostles," she said, close enough to feel his quickening breath. "But, there are some truths that may only be known through experience." She poured her will into him, penetrating his darting eyes, as Amun had once done to her. "Show me the quality of your faith."

They descended a spiralling stair deep into the stone bloom, as heavy towers of cloud fell across the sky. He gripped her hand like a lost child at first, easing up with each step, until he was running his fingers along her wrist as if to comfort her. There was little to be gained by explaining it to him, so she let her force of presence and the intensity of his belief sooth him. As they entered her chambers, wide as a city square, his easy, gentle movements let her know he was ready. No furnishings adorned the bleak space, save a dais that had never seen an audience. With a gesture for his benefit, she drew soft mosses out of the stone, reclining like an empress receiving grapes.

"Here," she said.

He sat down at the edge of the overgrown dais, a respectful distance from the folds of her robes. He deadpanned a compliment on the decor. Reaching around his waist, Luna pulled just enough for him to feel her want. Wordlessly, he allowed himself to be guided down into an embrace, his back to her chest, her legs and arms closing around him like a hungry flower takes a fly.

"It is not your body," she whispered. "Oh no, no, my child, it is your soul."

"My soul belongs to God, and even then, he would find better wares in a Germanian hovel," he said, or perhaps he though it. For the two of them, there was no distinction in this place.

"I am God's Mother, and all things come from me. All things return to me." She ran a finger through his sandy unkemptness, drawing him further in with the press of her thighs. "If the flock is to be led to greener pastures, the shepherd must be nourished as well." The scriptural reference resonated, setting ablaze that part of his mind that wanted for martyrdom, that foundation of Christian passion.

Laurentius turned in her grip to face her, reaching around her slender frame. He did not ask what would become of him, or what it meant to return his soul. He had been prepared to burn the day the persecutions returned. Though Luna knew he was a helpless thing in her grasp, her hesitation to consume him was washed away with his confident gaze. She placed upon his lips an unnecessary kiss, and though he did not flinch, he did not open. In her mind's eye she saw his light seeping into her, and the submission of his being caused him to betray a small cry. Drawing more, she took hold of his mouth as much as his soul, the first man she had known since the Foundation's proxies in that van, all those eons ago. Though their clothes remained, Laurentius breathed heavily from their intangible union, his every spiritual inkling confirmed. She was so far away from her other self, the lance between her and respite.

"Understand," she purred, "that if you come to me again, you will be a vassal of the celestial through me." She slowed her drinking, letting the flow trickle off. "Other men will die on a single day, but you will die with our every embrace, until only your shell remains. Your children and their children will nourish me, the price for the life I have given this world. You will—"

With what strength he had, the smiling fool reached up to touch a finger to her mouth. "I and my kin will be the world's love for you." With that, he fell asleep upon the moss.

* * *

The tent-city was alive with a heady mix of apocalyptic joy and sensible terror. Luna walked among them, letting them touch her hair and caress the hem of her modest robes. Laurentius had been making regular travels between the Dream and Rome, gaining influence with his serenity and theological insight. After all, he had rather personal experience with the metaphysical, and this had granted a weight to his thoughts, felt by all who heard him preach. Even the orthodox clerics had begrudgingly accepted him, making him a deacon. With the persecutions coming in more frequent bursts, this prominence was beginning to attract Imperial eyes. Luna wondered at the intent behind his anointment. Her followers feared the bishops of the Roman Empire as much as the Emperor, for Christian infighting invited crack-downs and assassinations. It was becoming difficult to tell who was purging who. Adding to the confusion were the rumours of Theotokos, spread largely by the bishops, who claimed she was a vampiric demon in the guise of the Virgin. Others said she was a siren out of Greek lore, or a pagan goddess jealous enough of Christianity to sabotage it from within. Several long-time worshippers had vanished from the Dream, by all account not martyred, leading some to speculate betrayal.

Although Luna walked and spoke with her followers often, today she had other motives. Laurentius had sustained her for two years, bringing a lucid power that she had not held since the accidental creation of the moon. If only her devoted vassal could live forever, she felt she would have the strength to complete her task. The man had not furthered his line, choosing a rather predictable life of physical celibacy. If the Emperor dealt with him now, she would be hard-pressed to find a taste as sweet.

A young woman wept to entangle her fingers in Luna's blue strands, but it was not her overwrought tears that drew the goddess' eye. Though all scents were faint beside Laurentius', this new addition to her garden might have nectar of worth. Stopping for but a moment, the divinity took the girl's wrist, nearly causing a swoon. A quick taste of soul-stuff told her all she needed to know, and she commanded the girl to be at the door of her house come nightfall.

Luna spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on a hill, overlooking the rolling, lush dreamscape. Crowded around her, the nervous worshippers enjoyed fanciful tales from the Holy Mother's many travels. Though often lacking in a moral lesson, the stories instilled a sense of wonder, and an appreciation for the cosmic beauty of creation. When the tent-city began to light the cooking fires, the most treasured worshipper returned with two retainers.

Laurentius walked slowly with a stout wooden stick, his legs of little use, and half his body numb. Though he was three decades old with nary a wrinkle or blemish, his devotion to Luna was taking its toll. Ignoring the sandy-haired man's protests, she dismissed his assistants and wrapped her robes around him. Like some strange bird they raced to the stone house and the mossy dais where they had spent many a night.

"A few more years," he said, "until the Emperor grants us toleration. You were right, Holy Mother! By preaching to power we have won sound allies."

"You still call me that," she smiled.

"I can't imagine you would prefer 'Thirsty Demon-Waif', Holy Mother."

"Oh, spare me your wit!" She pulled the feeble man down onto the moss, like a doll. Even in his inner-most thoughts, he did not mind such submission, though it tugged at Luna. She had done this to him. She would do it again.

"I have a request," he began, but Luna hushed him with a look.

"You have wanted one thing since the beginning. You do not want to leave this world on a soft bed, but in a glorious testament to your faith and Our Lord. I will grant you this, but you must perform one final task for me."

"I have never seen anyone wait at your door, other than myself. I will not leave you wanting, Holy Mother, when you still have so much work to do for God."

The numbness had spread through the necessary parts of his body, so Luna was present when the girl entered the room. A fanatical delirium defeated any shame or fear the weepy thing had, allowing her to be directed materially and immaterially in her union with Laurentius. Invisibly reaching into him, and then into her, she ensured the meeting, then ordered the girl to call in her kin and select a room in the house. Lacking Laurentius' humility, she was easy enough to convince. As the creature went scurrying off to fulfill her duties, Luna pondered the term "Holy Mother", and how long it had been since any had said her name. She had tried to tease it out of Laurentius once, but short of forcefully compelling him, he would not dishonour her by pretending to be her peer.

Two weeks later, agents of the mainline bishops, in a clandestine fashion, presented evidence to the Emperor that said Laurentius was not only preaching illicitly, but was concealing a monster in the hills to the north. He was seized soon after and tried alongside several prominent clerics from every Christian sect, including the sitting pope. Purges often had a way of swallowing the instigators. Luna watched the entire affair as a spectre, admiring her disciple's refusal to speak of the fabled Theotokos, even though there was no danger of her being discovered. The charged men pled guilty without hesitation, and Laurentius was last to be dragged to the public square, where he was strapped between two metal grids and held over a fire pit.

The crowd was thick to see the popular Laurentius grilled. While the fire was still being stoked, she climbed up on the grid to reach her arms in. Though unseen and feather-light, she willed Laurentius to feel her, and though he desperately wished otherwise, she stole his pain from him along with what remained of his soul. His essence was just enough to keep her own skin from bursting. While cooked flesh filled the crowd's nostrils, Luna told the man over and over that she loved him and was sending him to Heaven with all speed.

As his mind began to break, he shouted out, "This side's done, turn me over and have a bite!"

"Idiot," she said to the lifeless meat. She fell off the gridiron, laying there for a moment before crawling back into the Dream.

**c. AD 300**

With some meticulous, invisible fiddling, Luna had ensured a large family shared the stone house with her. Laurentius' seed had produced fine, luscious children, though the Holy Mother returned to her sporadic miniscule tastings to keep herself lively as they grew. She vowed to grant Laurentius' fate to no man or woman too young to willingly submit. Though the societal structure of those living in the Dream meant there would be no refusals, she felt it necessary for some reason to draw this thin line between monstrous and godly.

The gridiron martyrdom had inspired a renaissance within the Theotokos movement, transforming it into a faith all of its own. Although her worshippers continued to move amongst Christians in order to exert political and cultural sway, there was no longer any pretence of worshipping God or Christ. Their devotion was wholly for her.

Just as Luna could sense auras that could nourish her, she could sense auras that held other uses. She gathered dozens of her brightest and most able worshippers at the door of her house (as none would dare enter save for the Chosen Kin), to officially begin their great project.

"To give this world life, I spent most of the power native to me," she said in a clear voice, audible even to the crowd on the other side of the bridge. "The Chosen Kin, who hold the bloodline of my beloved Laurentius the Martyr, will continue to comfort me as I wander this world a broken god. But we will be whole again, and at the end of all things, you will all join me in a blessed communion. In honour of our destination, our movement shall be known as the Sea of Souls. I cannot do this alone, as I am still weak from the birth-pangs that shook the moon into the sky. Emperor Constantine's Edict of Toleration has given us an unparalleled opportunity. Under the guise of Christianity, you must spread throughout the Imperial government, to every post in every far-flung province. The age of martyrs is done. Only the Kin need give their life to me. Please, my children, bend under the pressure of government, and do not break. You must live! The seeds we plant in the Empire will one day grow a tree so vast its roots will wrap around this world. When the world is ours, you will all return to me, and I to you, and we shall be one."

With that, Luna's worshippers dispersed to set down roots. Thought they knew little of her true plans, they had witnessed enough in the Dream to be inspired for generations to come. When the time was right, she would show them more. The Builder's ruins were deep in this world, like the others, and one day she would take the descendants of her disciples to witness the place and its truth. In the years that followed, the Dream moved with Luna wherever she went. She traveled along the northern shores of Africa, through Mesopotamia, into Persia and the Orient. As the Kin grew in number, she kept only a small cadre in her house, allowing the others to build lives in the outside world. These Kin took on as their family name the name of Laurentius, moving to the barbarian lands north of Rome. In the tongues that emerged there, they were called "Lorenz", and their movement "Seele".

( _To be continued._ )


End file.
